“You turned Mrs. Nedry’s gardenias fluorescent again and she called the UFO hotline.”

“No.”

I closed my eyes and groaned. “Your homework ate your dog again.”

“No. Worse.”

Worse? My eyes popped open. It had taken us three hours to hunt down and kill the homework. His mom had not been happy at what the chase had done to the house. She still wondered where Brandy had gone. What could be worse?

Congrats on subscribing! But, I think I'm going to have to disagree with you on the episode. It was a lighthearted time-travelling romp, and I thought that it was well done. I enjoyed the voices and narration that JJ did - I hadn't been aware he did narration as well, so it was a bit of a surprise for me to have him do this. I'd be interested in hearing more from this universe - it was nice having a light story, and there were some interesting throw-away plots there ('homework eating the dog!')

That being said, I agree that the putting mud on the dress was strange - but I can see it in a strange 'this dress is too clean to be authentic 14th century' kind of way. And I was surprised that the narrator didn't go back in time with Kate - although its certainly alluded to that he is going to....

This one was a fun, light romp. Sort of like junk food. I wouldn't want it every week but every now and then you just NEED that tasty bag of empty calories!

I can admit that I too was a little off put with the mud smearing and then the whole mud fight became a bit "Gilligan's Island" for me but the over all the concept (socially inept teen inventor with buddy to help him out) was enjoyable and I wouldn't mind hearing the occasional "YA" type adventure from the two in the future.

I should add that I enjoyed the voice work on this one. Multiple voices does not always work but I thought it was well done and fit this story.

I had decided to allow Mommabird's initial post to stand as it is, and Adam's detailed reply towards it, because this is an unusual situation - it's a response not to a story, but to a host's outro, and this is the first time that a host explicitly involved the audience in an act of their religion (as opposed to talking about their religion). I felt that Mommabird was entitled to her emotional response and that Adam did a great job in responding to her.

If anyone disagrees with this decision either way, please let me know, either publicly or via PM. I am happy to reconsider. But please, not matter how good your intentions are, unless you are a forum moderator or an editor of one of the podcasts, don't directly request that other posters make changes to their posts.

If more people end up commenting on the topic of Adam's prayer, I will split it out of this thread, because I don't want it to dominate the story feedback. This is not meant as a discouragement of the topic, it's just a notice so that people won't be surprised if it happens.

I had decided to allow Mommabird's initial post to stand as it is, and Adam's detailed reply towards it, because this is an unusual situation - it's a response not to a story, but to a host's outro, and this is the first time that a host explicitly involved the audience in an act of their religion (as opposed to talking about their religion). I felt that Mommabird was entitled to her emotional response and that Adam did a great job in responding to her.

If anyone disagrees with this decision either way, please let me know, either publicly or via PM. I am happy to reconsider. But please, not matter how good your intentions are, unless you are a forum moderator or an editor of one of the podcasts, don't directly request that other posters make changes to their posts.

Not to digress much further, but I did just want to say three quick things:1) I had not considered the implications of an invitation to participate in a religious act vs. discussion of religion. Thank you for helping me have a better perspective.2) I'm letting my post stand, but looking back on it today I'm already cringing at how I phrased some points. Sometimes the words come out differently than I mean. I beg for your benefit of the doubt. 3) I absolutely agree with having the posts remain, for my part. Thanks for your well- considered moderation.

As a longtime supporter of escape artist I rarely comment on the stories. In this case I will speak my mind since I share the host’s experience as an adult convert to Catholicism.

I am curious about the term that the host used “mundane equality”. Sounds a bit dull. It is a nice dream to think our leaders can bring about a perfect world, but I am reminded of David Bowie’s song, “The Savior Machine.”

"President Joe once had a dreamThe world held his hand, gave their pledgeSo he told them his scheme for a savior machine

They called it the Prayer, its answer was lawIts logic stopped war, gave them foodHow they adored till it cried in its boredom"

I thought this was a fine story. Sure, it's a bit silly in places, but I thought the silliness was fun. The initial mud smearing was logical enough to me. Melissa did it right after Kate had said something disparaging. We don't know much about Melissa's character, but it's not too hard to imagine that a teenager who's just been insulted would find a way to get back at someone while trying to make it look like they're not actually trying to get back at that person. Or maybe she really did just think that the dress needed some mud to complete the look. Regardless, fun story. Thanks for producing it.

I also thought the voice work was great. I particularly liked the one used for the inventor (forgot his name).

Regarding the outro, I'm always interested in hearing the perspectives of our hosts as well as any background information that might help us understand those perspectives. And that extends to discussions on different religious or social backgrounds. While I personally am not particularly religious, I enjoy learning about the rituals and tenets of all faiths. That being said, I think Adam has hit the nail on the head with this:

Quote

I had not considered the implications of an invitation to participate in a religious act vs. discussion of religion.

I think the invitation to join in with the Hail Mary, no matter how well intended, does change the tenor of the discussion and I can see how it could lead to discomfort for some listeners.

I am curious about the term that the host used “mundane equality”. Sounds a bit dull.

Hi, dragonsbreath,Thanks for the question. What I meant was just this: That I hope for a world where equality is such a social norm that there's no longer a real need to remark upon race, gender and the like. That we truly judge people on the "content of their character." It would be such a given, that people receive it without finding such superficial differences relevant. It would, in short be "mundane."Hope that makes sense. Adam

I enjoyed this story. I especially enjoyed that it was a story about teens that wasn't full of teen angst. I also liked the way the author managed to deal with the potential consequences of time travel by having Kate decide that she must be dreaming. It is by far the most logical explanation for her experience.

I would enjoy hearing about some of the other adventures of these two best friends.

To be honest, the splattering of the mud on the dress was a little odd, but only in that she wasn't trying to do something like splatter the hem and went straight for a big smear. Unfortunately it's a stereotype in some older works and poorly researched stories that Europeans in the middle ages had no concept of cleanliness, and that leads to a lot of people with particularly idealized/romanticised views not based in actual fact to some very unfortunate decisions.

The computer's Urban Dictionary translation was also particularly entertaining for me for reasons I can't seem to explain.

Now on to the other topic, the outtro.

I may be in a minority here, but I was not offended by what happened. I am not a religious person myself, but I support people who feel strongly about their religions, it is their right to practice as they see fit. I can be respectful of their respectful displays of their own religion.

However I do get offended by those that use their religion,or another's, as an excuse for hateful behavior. This was not that. It was not an attack on another belief system, it was not a condemnation, and Adam was not holding it up as the only right and correct way to beleive. Also, he gave ample warning to those who did not wish to participate to skip over it. I saw it as an invitation to join him in sharing a piece of himself with the community, in a way he knew could be very unpopular. I can and do support and applaud his decision under the circumstances.

Please don't take this to mean I would like for it to become a regular occurrence, but if for whatever reason it does I have a fast forward button and I'm not afraid to use it.

This story was super fun. I loved both the main characters, both the neuro-atypical mad scientist who just really wants to impress the girl but isn't really paying attention to social norms, and the friend who busts his ass trying to keep things from spiraling out of control.

The translator being based on urban dictionary was hilarious. To hear the middle English, which I could at least partially recognize, and then have it thrown immediately into modern slang just made me giggle.

I did find the mud-slinging a bit hard to believe, but since the rest of the story was silly and over the top, I had less of an issue with it? She came across as arrogant and ill-mannered to commence smearing mud on a dress that someone else was still wearing without so much as a by-your-leave, and based on an inaccurate understanding of the historical situation despite being aware of the era enough to be able to recognize period garb as not being represented well in the theater's costume department.

Regarding the outro, I do think it's worth separating discussion of someone's beliefs and asking for participation in those beliefs. But I don't want to abet swamping the discussion of the story with discussion of the outro.

There was a new post about the topic of the prayer in the outro; as I said above, I have now split the topic into a seperate thread to prevent it from dominating the story comments. Please go here to continue the discussion.

There was a new post about the topic of the prayer in the outro; as I said above, I have now split the topic into a seperate thread to prevent it from dominating the story comments. Please go here to continue the discussion.

Eeek. I'm sorry, but the meme of "that escalated quickly" came to mind (upon glancing the above thread).

"What can do that to a man? Lightning... napalm? No, some people just explode [sic]. Natural causes". Source: Repo Man.

There was a new post about the topic of the prayer in the outro; as I said above, I have now split the topic into a seperate thread to prevent it from dominating the story comments. Please go here to continue the discussion.

Eeek. I'm sorry, but the meme of "that escalated quickly" came to mind (upon glancing the above thread).

Actually, given that it took nearly 5 weeks from the first post until the split, and given that the strongest worded post was the first one, I don't quite think that the meme applied. Is there a "This persisted a while" meme?

There was a new post about the topic of the prayer in the outro; as I said above, I have now split the topic into a seperate thread to prevent it from dominating the story comments. Please go here to continue the discussion.

Eeek. I'm sorry, but the meme of "that escalated quickly" came to mind (upon glancing the above thread).

Actually, given that it took nearly 5 weeks from the first post until the split, and given that the strongest worded post was the first one, I don't quite think that the meme applied. Is there a "This persisted a while" meme?

Heh, no idea. Cheers.

"What can do that to a man? Lightning... napalm? No, some people just explode [sic]. Natural causes". Source: Repo Man.

There was a lot to like about this story. The guys' friendship, and the way the narrator tries to protect his friend while never talking down to him. Their abashed and respectful treatment of Kate. The Urban Dictionary translator. Unfortunately, I found Melissa's sudden mud-slinging to be completely incomprehensible, and the story basically lost me at that point. I mean, what high schooler does that??

I just listened to this one for the first time. I found it fun, if not very deep. Very good voice work. The idea that anyone from the Middle Ages would of course speak in an unintelligible version of the modern language makes a lot of sense and is sadly often missing from fantasy stories, so I found this a nice detail. The translation parts were of course hilarious.

I found the mud slinging more than a little problematic. A story that started out with an interesting premise dissolved into a teenage-boy fantasy of two hot girls in a mud fight. I don't know why the boys felt like they needed to keep Melissa in the dark about Katherine's origin and then, just as inexplicably, let her in on it just as Katherine 'disappeared'. Also, I don't understand why Katherine just gave up her dress with little prompting or explanation and agreed to be sent back in Vincent's mom's clothes. I was also waiting for a reveal about who Katherine "really" was... although I can't think of a famous historical Katherine besides Catherine the Great and she was Russian.

(Sorry for the late post/revival of this thread, I just listened to this. Usually I don't go back so far to post unless I have something to add that I don't think got discussed when the episode aired)

I had the same reaction as many forumites; Friend is a cool dude, translator is hilarious, and WTF with this mud fight? Basically, Melissa came off as an a-hole, and then inventor dude joins in? This really made no sense (until esanderson pointed out this is a teen boy fantasy, and then, well, eww!).

Also, I had no clue these were teenagers. I assumed they were university students, so early 20's. Maybe that is why I felt Melissa's mud slinging was completely inappropriate. But as Devoted135 noted, "what high schooler does that?", so even that doesn't help me. All in all, if we could have this story without the mud fight, that would be awesome!

New listener stopping in to comment on some older episodes that they happened to download randomly.

I was surprised by this story but enjoyed it quite a lot. It made me giggle.

I don't pay a lot of attention to the intro/outros and had completely forgotten there was a prayer in this one. Given some of the other intro/outro comments about contemporary politics, not sure why an invitation to prayer should be treated differently. It's just someone expressing their opinions/beliefs. If you don't wanna hear it, that's what the fastforward - or skip - button is for. I have found some of the political commentary on other episodes more offensive then this prayer, and have found nothing so far so offensive as to cause me to stop wanting to listen to further episodes.